A resource can be considered as a good, service, and/or commodity which is purchased by a customer and sold by a resource provider. Oftentimes a customer will purchase many different types of resources from numerous providers under differing pricing structures, and desire to account for, or otherwise track its resource consumption. This can be for various reasons which include a desire to budget for resource purchasing, track current and past usage and expenditures, and to predict future usage and expenditures.
One type of resource is a utility resource. Utility resources typically include electricity, gas (natural or petroleum-based), water, and sewer service, to name just a few. One type of customer for utility services is one which includes a number of different geographically-separated sites. Such customers typically purchase their resources from multiple unrelated resource providers. Those who have purchase decision making and/or payment authority for these types of resources typically face a very burdensome task of tracking and maintaining resource consumption and use information for a customer, and in particular for a customer having a number of different sites. In the past, tracking and accounting for resource consumption has typically been done by each individual customer. Needless to say, this is a very time-consuming and expensive proposition.
The problems faced by a customer having multiple sites are particularly nettlesome in view of the environment of deregulated energy markets because customers now have the ability to look to multiple providers with differing offering terms for required utility resources.
This invention arose out of concerns associated with improving the management tools available for assisting customers in tracking, verifying bill accuracy, maintaining, and/or making resource purchasing decisions. In particular, this invention arose out of concerns associated with providing improved management tools for tracking, verifying bill accuracy, maintaining, and/or facilitating decision making pertaining to the acquisition, transport, and consumption of utility resources.